Revenge of the Witch (Spook’s Apprentice #1) by Joseph Delaney
Publication: HarperCollins (September 6, 2005), Hardcover, 368 pages / ISBN 0060766182
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Rating: 
Find @ Amazon or IndieBound
Challenges: Read Your Own Books 2009 (#22)
First sentence: When the Spook arrived, the light was already beginning to fail.
Series: Book #1 (you’re here!) | Book #2
In one sentence: Exciting and scary and a wonderful start to a series.
I spotted Revenge of the Witch amongst a selection of sale books on Bookcloseouts.com (my one true weakness). It sounded interesting, so I bought it. Little did I know that I’d end up liking it so much!
Summary from Amazon:
Capturing witches
Binding boggarts
Driving away ghostsFor years, Old Gregory has been the Spook for the county, ridding the local villages of evil. Now his time is coming to an end. But who will take over for him? Twenty-nine apprentices have tried–some floundered, some fled, some failed to stay alive.
Only Thomas Ward is left. He’s the last hope; the last apprentice.
Can Thomas succeed? Will he learn the difference between a benign witch and a malevolent one? Does the Spook’s warning against girls with pointy shoes include Alice? And what will happen if Thomas accidentally frees Mother Malkin, the most evil witch in the county … ?
Revenge of the Witch is an excellent first book. It’s got a lot of oomph: it’s exciting and spooky and seriously compelling, and even though it has some rough spots it still manages to make me love it.
It reminds me of a mix between the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books (even the illustrations are reminiscent of them) and the Septimus Heap series. I’m not spooked easily, but, seriously: Mr. Delaney manages to keep this tension throughout the book that even when nothing is really happening I still feel right on the edge. It moves quicker than the Septimus Heap books do, and though maybe the characters aren’t as vibrant as in those books they’re still quite interesting. And enigmatic! Just about the only person who isn’t full of mysteries is Tom, and while you may think that sort of thing gets annoying, I find it kinda fun to try and put pieces of a person’s life together and figure out who they are.
Like the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books, Revenge of the Witch is a little darker than your typical YA fantasy book, and I really liked that. It makes it scarier and more exciting! Just be sure to, er, read the book in the daylight– I’m an adult and I still got really spooked reading Revenge of the Witch at night. 
The only thing I didn’t like about Revenge of the Witch was Tom’s proclivity for explaining away his action by saying something like “what choice do I have” when most of the time he does have some sort of choice, he just always picks the wrong one. Hello! Start acknowledging your mistakes beyond “oh darn, maybe I shouldn’t have done that.” Start being proactive! Stop being stupid! Geeze.
Also, and I’m likely to bring this up again in later reviews of this series, but I can’t help but feel uncomfortable that nearly all the baddies Tom and the Spook trap seem to be either genderless ghosts or female witches. Where’s the male baddies? Why do they only seem to be imprisoning women when there must be a few evil men running around? It’s kinda creepy, actually, especially when you consider that there doesn’t seem to be any female Spooks working, either. Luckily there’s two strong female characters, Alice and Tom’s mom, who are both magic-y but good, that kinda balances things out, and in later books the imprisonment of female witches is talked about more (plus more strong female characters show up), but still. Creepy, and slightly disappointing. I don’t think kids will necessarily notice this, but it could make for an interesting discussion.
But besides that– really fun, exciting book that I’d heartily recommend. If you have an opportunity to check out the Last Apprentice series, do it. You won’t regret it!
Note: The Last Apprentice series has quite a few names, depending on where you live. If you’re in the UK Revenge of the Witch is known as The Spook’s Apprentice. Apparently the US version was changed slightly from the UK version– typical phrase/slang rewriting that I abhor– so if you want the original, unchanged version go for the UK one.
Other reviews: Epic Life | Stuff For Teens | What KT Reads | A Garden Carried In the Pocket
This has probably been the most books I’ve ever read in week– not that I’ve really checked. It just seems like I’ve read about a book every day and a half, sometimes more, and compared to the amount I was reading back in, say, April: it’s a lot. Or maybe it just seems that way because I read two books in one day on Thursday– actually I’ve just read one more book than last week’s total. Hm.
I’ve started to run out of places to put my books, and I’m also starting to feel clogged up with books I’ll never read, anyway. I’m going to start purging, I think, starting with the books I’ve owned for more than three years and haven’t read yet. But where should I purge them? Used bookstore? BookMooch? Giveaways here on my blog? What do you think?
Anyway, yesterday was the library book sale and though I bought less books than I normally do, it’s still an influx when I wanted an…outflux (or whatever). Oh well. I suppose I’ll never stop buying books; I just need more places to put them. Plus I found two really fun-looking chick lit books! I’ve been craving those pretty hardcore since it turned summer, but unfortunately my closest library doesn’t have any and I can’t afford to spend $14ish dollar on them. Sad! Maybe I’ll have to trek down to the farther-away library and pick some up.
Books read this week:
114. The Demon’s Lexicon – Sarah Rees Brennan [rating: 4/5]
115. Heroes of the Valley – Jonathan Stroud [rating: 4.5/5]
116. The Last Days – Scott Westerfeld [rating: 4/5]
117. The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl – Barry Lyga [rating: 3.5/5]
118. Flygirl – Sherri L. Smith [rating: 4/5]
119. Night of the Soul Stealer (The Last Apprentice #3) – Joseph Delaney [rating: 3.5/5]
120. Watermelon – Marian Keyes [rating: 4/5]
Books reviewed this week:
Adam of the Road – Elizabeth Janet Gray [rating: 4.5/5]
Only Human – Tom Holt [rating: 4/5]
Upcoming events:
The Lake of Skulls contest is over and done, and I have picked a winner! There were thirteen viable entries (four of you didn’t leave an email address. Shame! Black shame!), and random.org picked entry #4 as the winner.
It’s Wendy of Wendy’s Minding Spot! Congratulations, Wendy!
For those of you who didn’t win, thanks for entering and better luck next time, eh? Which should be sometime next week, actually– no idea what the book is going to be, yet, but it’ll be a good one! Hopefully.
Just a quick notice that Night Shade Books, who publishes books like Liz William’s wonderful Detective Inspector Chen series (I’ve reviewed book one here), is having a sale on all their books!
It’s that time of year again, sale time at Night Shade Books. We’ve got a lot of big new titles coming in, and we need to clear space in a big way (and pay off a few print bills)! So for the next two weeks, from Wednesday, June 3 until midnight on Wednesday, June 17, we’re offering 50% off all in-stock and forthcoming* Night Shade books, with a four book minimum order. Just use the coupon code 50NSB2009 at checkout, and we’ll do the rest!
More info at their blog here. Woohoo!
I’ve completed my first challenge of the year! Woohoo! You all have no idea how worried I’ve been about finishing all these challenges I’ve joined, ahaha. Ha. Er.
Challenge started: January 1, 2009
Challenge finished: June 11, 2009
Total books read: 25
A list of the books read for the challenge can be found here on the challenge’s post. If you’d like to join the 2009 Support Your Local Library Challenge you can still do so at J. Kaye’s blog here!
More about my rating guide, including the buy/borrow/bin rating system used Sept. 2010-May 2011.
An explanation of the various ads and affiliates whatevers can be found on this new page I just made.
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